Braque du Bourbonnais

Pheasant hunting, Helm (California), 6th of February 2010

Enslish Version


From left to right: Larry (Cactus Country) with Ammopedigree, Larry B. with B.J.pedigree (son of Brock), Greg with Gunnerpedigree, Joe and Remipedigree, Claude and Codypedigree / Fletcherpedigree and Shane with Dukepedigree and Samanthapedigree.
Missing on the picture Marcel and his son Marc with of Mayapedigree and a young german pointer Abbie, and two of Larry's dogs (Cactus Country Kennel), Brock and Lannie who were in the truck.

We started our drive William (my adopted son for a day) and I at 02:45 AM and headed North on the 405. We reached the GrapeVine in extremely heavy rain and I was wondering if I made the right call in "Going no matter what" - (Are we Mice or Man?).
Once we reached the top around 4200 feet of altitude the rain slowed and then stopped more or less until we reached Helm, Ca.

Everyone started arriving around 07:30 and everyone that had signed up for the ACE High hunt showed up. In total we had 9 hunters and 1 observer (William).
Unfortunately the other observer Stacie & familly had to cancel due to a familly emergency so we did not get to see the Dodger (Rufnit Unique).

Another picture, this one with Marcel, Maya and Abbie.

The Hunt club owner showed up on schedule with lots of pheasants and proceeded over to the hunting area. This is 6,000 acres of farm fields with great cover, and because of the rain lots of clay mud as you can clearly see in some of the pictures. But the weather was not too bad, it was raining lightly the whole morning with some periods of heavier showers but nothing the dogs could not handle. It truly was, as the owner of the hunt club said, a great test for our dogs. The birds were released, not planted and as before there were also semi-wild and wild bird already in the field.

We split up into smaller groups to cover the huge fields. I started with Greg/Gunner on the far left and Marcel/Maya, Marc/Abbie in the center and me/Fletcher/Cody on the left of one field while Joe/Remi were in another, Shane/Duke/Sam in their center and Larry with Brock/Lanie/Amo on their Right. The shooting started almost immediately on both sides on me and I though I was the only one not finding bird so I spread out further left and the dog starting getting in some birds. These things can fly and don't like to be crowded by the dogs. Many a bird flew off before we were in range when crowded by the dogs.
Soon the dogs found the proper range and we got some beautiful pointing, backing, honoring and in some cases both dogs 20 yard apart on point on different birds. Beautiful dog work and the shooting was not bad. Cody & Fletcher found their 10 birds in 45 mns and since neither William nor I had any room left in our bags we went back to the parking lot where we met Marcel and Marc who had 12 birds. And were going back out for more.

I'll let Larry, Greg, Shane etc tell their story when they respond to this but the bottom line is that in total we got 90 birds... including a chukar and, if you believe Joe and Shane several wild pheasants (I do).
Excellent comaraderie and a great time although wet and muddy for all of us capped by an excellent steak dinner at the famous Harris Ranch.

CT